I came here altricial.  Naked and blind.  I slowly grew in fluffy down feathers, covering my nakedness and warming me.  I grew in my contour feathers and flight feathers.  And soon I stepped into the abyss and found myself soaring above the heavens, riding the thermals and owning the sky. 

I flew over mountains as a raptor.  I danced with the herons, hundreds of us creating fractal patterns in the sky.  I wandered across the ocean as an albatross, bringing fate to those I followed.

I even danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, a lesson not timely learned.

When I flew too high my eyes were opened and I saw Icarus fall, his melted wings tumbling with him from the sky.  Yet my wings, grown of my soul, were only singed.  And I was no longer blind.

And now I will join the Phoenix, in our nest of cinnamon twigs, to embrace a new incarnation, to join again with the soul of Ra. 

I leave naked,
Just as I came,
But no longer blinded,
And never the same.